


I Should Tell You

by Shinri29



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, I don't know, One-Shot, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:35:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21872320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shinri29/pseuds/Shinri29
Summary: They say no one is ever truly gone.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 15
Kudos: 90





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is really short. Just working through my grief.

They say no one is ever truly gone.

To Poe, Rey says she wishes to commune with the Force, confirm that balance has been achieved.

To Finn, she says she wishes to pay her respects to Leia and Luke, in the place it all began.

To Rose, with her gentle, wise eyes, she says she needs to be alone.

The truth is somewhere between them and perhaps none of them at all.

She had wanted to know her place in everything. It should come as no surprise that the answer does not provide the peace she had longed for.

Maybe Tatooine could provide a measure of it. Or at least solitude to grieve.

o-o-o-o-o-o

Ben manifests in the Force 48 days after Exolgor.

A specter of translucent blue, hair like azure waves and the same plain, loose shirt and trouser she last saw him. Free from the agony that shackled him in life, Ben gazes at her with the same tenderness of their last moments.

She is reminded, vividly, of his breathtaking smile, the light which burst from him like a sun, lips pressed to hers like a promise and a goodbye.

"Rey."

Her name, spoken in a whispered caress, is enough to break her.

It pours through her like a force of nature, the wretchedness, the unfairness, of a lifetime of days and nights stolen, a heart which longed to echo sweet promises of _you're not alone, neither of are you_.

The man before her, and the Rey of old, would have raged to the heavens, put feeling to muscles, grasp a saber or staff until the emotion was spent. Instead, she let it release into the Force, salty tears to anoint the shifting sands.

Even before opening her eyes, she knew he hovered before her. Ghostly but present.

"Why did you do it?" _Do you regret it?_

A phantom hand rises to cup her cheek, a bit of static brushes skin, sending a jolt of energy through her.

"Never. I would die a thousand times for you."

"I wish you didn't." It is easier to give voice to her feelings now, even with the pain her words elicit apparent in his expressive eyes.

At last he murmurs, "There was none for me, in a world without you."

Rey lingers in the sands long after he fades away.


	2. I'd Die For One More Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just reread part I. and lol. it's a mess of typos and grammatical errors. oops
> 
> Song title from "Your Eyes" from _Rent_

_  
He comes to her in dreams._

_Solid beneath her touch. Breath warm against her skin._

_She swallows his exhales and whispered declarations and takes him inside her._

_"Are you here? Is this real?" she cries after pleasure crashes over her._

_Exhilaration bleeds into fear into loneliness into pleasure all over again._

_"As real as you need me to be."_

o-o-o-o-o-o

50 days after Exolgor, Rey digs out the ancient moisture vaporators.

She finds them buried deep in the sand, corroded by the elements, damaged, some in pieces and others long scavenged for parts. The Force aids her, divulges their locations with the memory of moisture and wind, drags them through the earth and into the light.

The power which had flooded her on Exolgor, imbued with the voices and the wisdom of generations of Jedi, has left her.

It is only Rey that remains.

But that, at least, is nothing new.

There is little to make her smile these days, but it is with fierce satisfaction that she lines them in the courtyard, and buffs them into, if not pristineness, at least presentability. Readying them to this point was a task of two daycycles' hard effort, however the true testament of her hard scrabble skills is to follow.

"This isn't going to work, Rey."

The familiar, gruff tone is both a delight and an irritant. Glowing blue in the guise of a Jedi Master, Luke Skywalker hovers beside her, arms crossed and a look of obvious skepticism as he glances over her scavenging.

"It _will_." Rey rises to her feet slowly, stretching out kinks and wearied limbs, and pointedly not meeting the Jedi Master's gaze. It is easy to recall the frustrating grump from Ach-to, in moments such as this.

"Rey, the circuits are degraded beyond repair. Even a mechanic as skilled, and resourceful, as you won't be able to get these running. You'd be better off scrapping them for parts, and trading for newer units. Better yet," and now Luke's chiding tone softens somewhat, "go back to your friends. Make a life with the family you chose."

Ignoring Force Ghosts with unhelpful comments and unwanted suggestions, Rey grunts as she pulls open the side paneling of one unit to reveal the inner circuitry. The sight isn't pretty, but she is reluctant to give voice to any dismay before her almost-Master. Still, despite his apparent reservations, Rey remains optimistic. Luke's family had operated several vaporators suitable for moisture farmers. Rey's ambitions are more modest. Two to three working units would provide much needed water reserves and allow her to carve out a kitchen garden from the commercial hydroponics garden she found in the homestead.

After muttering, "Stubborn girl," Luke leaves her alone.

The rest of the day passes in industrious silence as Rey works on the vaporators into the evening.

"Whatcha doing?"

This time she greets the interruption with an upturned mouth. "What does it look like?"

Ben dangles his long legs over a crate of dated provisions, an amused air as he studies her efforts. This time, Ben wears sand colored robes tied with a brown belt, dark hair cropped slightly but for a narrow braid by his ear. They peak out slightly, round and adorably large. Pink colors cheeks as if the thought transferred to him. And maybe it did. If the garb does not warn her, Ben's face would--high cheekbones and pale, smooth, unblemished skin. No faint scar to bisect soft, warm, vulnerable eyes.

"Looks like your scavenging days aren't behind you."

And Rey is grinning now. Why is it only _now_ that those years of hardship and anguish fill her with a fierce pride? _She_ survived, not for any powerful bloodline or great purpose, but through her own determination to live. "Your Uncle was very unhelpful. It would have been nice to have some practical advice from someone who maintained them. But it was not to be."

"I'm afraid I won't be much better help." Ben hops down from the crate, or perhaps more accurately, _floats_ into a standing position, and then materializes at her side to peer into the decrepit vaporator upon which she currently worked. "Is that the power cell?"

Rey glances to where he indicated, then nods. "Backup power cell. Runs primarily on solar energy."

"Well that's about all I know. Learned enough to build my saber, and what _not_ to do from watching my Dad tinker with the Falcon."

Tatooine’s double suns threaten to bleed across the horizon, and take the needed daylight in their passing. Although Rey has already managed to salvage some workable solar panels and rig up the existing lighting grid, her power reserves remain conservative and she has taken to stopping work after the suns have set.

Letting her tools rest on their makeshift tool box, Rey studies her ghostly former nemesis and almost lover as she ponders the sum of her knowledge against the seemingly endless mysteries of the Force. “You look younger. Than I remember you. Or since the other times I’ve seen you.”

“Death becomes me, you mean.” The words come at a deadpan, barely a flicker to ruffle his normally intemperate expression. At last a smirk peaks out.

"No--" Rey aims a smack through a translucent arm that sends a wave of static up her wrist. "That's not funny." But soon she is laughing anyway. If a bit of tears glimmer upon her lashes, Ben is kind enough not to comment. "Can you change your form?"

He glances down over his own body, taking in the robes and the back of his hands. "I'm wearing my padawan robes. I must be a teenager." Incredibly his ears, visible with the shorter cut, flush a darker blue-purple.

Rey gives him a lingering once over, before drawling, "I like it. Very pure." As Ben's blush only intensifies, Rey chuckles and heads toward the 'fresher, Ben trailing her. Although knowing Ben would hear her anyway, while shucking clothes on the fresher floor, Rey calls over her shoulder, "Do you have any control over your appearance?"

"Uh-h, sort of."

At the odd tone, Rey glances up to see Ben pointedly averting his gaze. Reminded suddenly of her own flustered state after glimpsing Ben shirtless in the Force bond, Rey smiles fondly. In a low voice, she calls, "You can look, if you want."

Very slowly, as if afraid she would retract the offer, Ben turns to face her.

And the breath stutters in her chest.

Lust and longing, love and agony. They are written in the depths of soulful eyes and the taut planes of his face. For what could have been theirs. For what _should_ have been theirs. He drinks her in like a man starved of love and denied his greatest desire. The intensity of his longing drives away any levity, and drags the clawed feet of desperation through her chest cavity. Wet trails tracking down her cheeks are reflected in the tears glimmering in Ben's eyes.

"Will I see you?" _Later. In my dreams._ The longing in her own voice is palpable.

"Yes," he promises with the resolution of his former persona. Then his voice breaks. "I'll try."

o-o-o-o-o-o

_She is buffeted by waves._

_That day, on Kef Bir, she had jumped into the tempest without hesitation. Kylo on her heels._

_She, for whom the water trough in Niima Outpost had once been the most water she had ever seen._

_Fear, and a fierce determination, had kept her moving, kept her fighting._

_Something is out there. Beyond the waves. She follows it like a siren call, helpless to the instinct for survival._

_This time it is not a watery graveyard that awaits her, nor a convergence of Darkness._

_The waves part to a grassy plane with a red sun on the horizon. It is here she finds him. It is here he waits._

_“Ben.”_

_A hand trembles as she presses it against the soft black shirt to feel the steady beat of his heart. In disbelief, a soft sound escapes her. “Is it really you?”_

_“It’s me. I’m here.” Ben speaks the same wonder, the same longing for touch and connection. “Rey,” he pleads, reaching forward to cradle her jaw in his large hands, the same which had gripped her with determination to transfer his lifeforce into her own._

_“You’re not alone.” The familiar promise slips her lips earnestly before she brings them in wordless devotions._

_Ben leans into her kiss eagerly, sliding his hands from her jaw to cup the back of head, carrying her forward._

_The kiss on Exolgor had been sweet, but brief, joyous and awoken to shared passion. To remember those seconds of wholeness was to be reminded of the agony of separation which followed._

_Rey pushes those thoughts aside and gives herself to the warm, smooth press of Ben's mouth, his hard, powerful body against her own. She opens to the tentative probe of his tongue, and chases his shy retreat with her own._

_In the real world, beyond this reprieve of breathy sighs and intimate pleasures, Rey has never known a lover, and neither, she suspects, has Ben. Perhaps there, noses would have bumped in awkward kisses and fumbling touches would have them laughing as often as sighing._

_Minds intertwined in this dreamscape, more so even than the connection of their Force bond, thought translates into feeling. Ben's love, Ben's longing echoes seamlessly with her desire for closeness and answering reassurance._

_There is no pain when he enters her. Only ecstasy._

_The teasing glimpses of skin and perfect harmony of their bodies in combat were a prelude to this rightness._

_There is a wave that is Rey, building to a momentum both frightening and exhilarating, and the shoreline that is Ben, bringing her to greater heights and steadily drawing her in._

_"Ben, please--"._ Don't leave me. Be with me.

 _The exhale in her ear, the sharp pistoning of Ben's solid thighs, the hot drip of tears upon her shoulder, and his voice breaking a rough command, "Let go, Rey," break and remake her._ I'm here. You're not alone.

_Be with me._

_Be with me._

_Be with me._

_Passion bleeds into serenity, and Rey loses herself._

_Rey is Ben, and Ben is Rey._

_Have they always been one? Two broken shapes finding meaning in a whole, that nothing, not even death, could divide._

_In this moment of grace, they are together._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure: I have no concrete plans for this fic. Also, I think I am still too sad to write smut. 😂 So my feelings on this are sort of just meh.
> 
> I'll write more if the muse strikes me and if there is interest in reading more.
> 
> However, I do have some vague ideas for where to take this, so at the very least I think I will write a couple more continuations of this. I think it is likely to take the form of vignettes rather than a plotted, multi chapter fic.
> 
> Also, in case anyone wondered, the titles come from _Rent_ , the musical. Completely different stories, but I happened to be revisiting the album. I see Ben as more of a Mimi, and Rey as Roger. Just kidding.
> 
> For readers of my other fic, YCTLCWM, I was/am working on the final chapter, minus epilogue, (interrupted by RofS feelings), which I hope to have posted by the end of the year or early January.
> 
> Anyway let me know if you enjoyed and want to see more!
> 
> For those who celebrate, Merry Christmas!

**Author's Note:**

> Arghhhhghh.
> 
> I was thinking to write a fix-it-fic, but apparently the old noodle isn't ready to do that yet.
> 
> If I am emotionally ready for it, I may write something happier another day.


End file.
